German Films Quarterly 4 · 2006 DIRECTORS’ PORTRAITS: Dagmar Hirtz & Christoph Schlingensief PRODUCER’S PORTRAIT: TAG/TRAUM Film ACTRESS WITH A PASSION: Imogen Kogge FESTIVAL PORTRAIT: 40 Years of Hof – The Home of Films SPECIAL REPORT: Writing for the Screen german films quarterly 4/2006 focus on 4 WRITING FOR THE SCREEN directors’ portraits 8 THE QUESTION OF IDENTITY A portrait of Dagmar Hirtz 10 THE ANIMATOR A portrait of Christoph Schlingensief producers’ portrait 12 WHAT A DAY FOR A DAYDREAM A portrait of TAG/TRAUM Filmproduktion actress’ portrait 14 ACTING WITH PASSION A portrait of Imogen Kogge festival portrait 16 HOME OF FILMS A portrait of the Hof International Film Festival 18 news in production 24 AM ENDE KOMMEN TOURISTEN Robert Thalheim 25 DIE ANRUFERIN Felix Randau 25 AUFBRUCH DER FILMEMACHER Dominik Wessely, Laurens Straub 26 AUTOPILOTEN Bastian Guenther 27 BEAUTIFUL BITCH Theo Martin Krieger 28 DU BIST NICHT ALLEIN Bernd Boehlich 28 EINE ETWAS ANDERE FAMILIE Marc Meyer 29 EIN FALL FUER FREUNDE … WIE ALLES BEGANN Tony Loeser, Jesper Moeller 30 HAENDE WEG VON MISSISSIPPI Detlev Buck 31 HERR BELLO Ben Verbong 32 MONDKALB Sylke Enders 32 STUBE 54 Granz Henman 33 WEN DER BERG RUFT Tamara Staudt new german films 36 7 ZWERGE – DER WALD IST NICHT GENUG 7 DWARVES – THE WOOD IS NOT ENOUGH Sven Unterwaldt 37 AUFTAUCHEN AMOUR FOU Felicitas Korn 38 THE BIG SELLOUT Florian Opitz 39 BUMMM! – DEINE FAMILIE, DEIN SCHLACHTFELD BUMMM! – YOUR FAMILY, THE BATTLEFIELD Alain Gsponer 40 CELEBRATION OF FLIGHT: THE DREAM OF A PILOT Lara Juliette Sanders 41 COUSIN COUSINE COUSINS Maria Mohr 42 EIN SOMMER LANG ONE LONG SUMMER Steffi Niederzoll 43 EIN FREUND VON MIR A FRIEND OF MINE Sebastian Schipper 44 HUI BUH – DAS SCHLOSSGESPENST HUI BUH – THE GOOFY GHOST Sebastian Niemann 45 KEIN PLATZ FUER GEROLD NO ROOM FOR GEROLD Daniel Nocke 46 DIE KOENIGE DER NUTZHOLZGEWINNUNG LUMBER KINGS Matthias Keilich 47 LEBEN MIT HANNAH LIVING WITH HANNAH Erica von Moeller 48 LOSERS AND WINNERS Ulrike Franke, Michael Loeken 49 TKKG – DAS GEHEIMNIS UM DIE RAETSELHAFTE MIND-MACHINE TKKG AND THE MYSTERIOUS MIND MACHINE Tomy Wigand 50 TOD IN DER SIEDLUNG Torsten C. Fischer 51 WER FRUEHER STIRBT IST LAENGER TOT GRAVE DECISIONS Marcus H. Rosenmueller 52 WO IST FRED? WHERE IS FRED? Anno Saul 53 ZEIT OHNE ELTERN TIME WITHOUT PARENTS Celia Rothmund 57 film exporters 59 foreign representatives · imprint WRITING FOR THE SCREEN Dr. Christina Kallas is a writer-producer and the president of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE), which unites 9000 screenwriters and 21 writers’ guilds across Europe and is currently growing at phenomenal speed to involve Eastern European screen- writers too. She is a member of the board of the Screenwriters Guild of Germany (VDD), a member of the German and of the European Film Academy. She is also the artistic director of the Balkan Fund, the script development fund within the framework of the Thessaloniki Film Festival (which was fundamental in the development of the 2006 Golden Bear winner Grbavica) and a member of the screenplay fund- ing commission of the German Federal Film Board. Kallas has been teaching Screenwriting since 1998 at the German Film & Television Academy in Berlin and since 2004 also at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is the author of three books: European Co- Productions in Film and Television (Nomos Verlag, 1992), The Art of Invention and Narration in the Cinema (Nefeli, Athens 2006) and Creative Screenwriting. An Attempt at a Method (UVK 2007, working title). As the president of the FSE, Kallas is chairing a Conference on European Screenwriting in association with the European Film Academy, the Robert Bosch Foundation and CNC-funded Balkan Fund in November 2006 at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, aiming to tackle all the following issues and their implications for screenwriters. German Films Quarterly spoke with Christina Kallas about screen- writing in Germany and Europe. Dr. Christina Kallas (photo courtesy Christina Kallas ofDr. VDD) WHAT IS THE SITUATION FOR SCREENWRITERS IN GERMANY? WOULD YOU SAY THAT GERMANY HAS Now, there are times when things go perfectly well, but often by the A HEALTHY SCREENWRITING SECTOR? time you have gone through four co-producers, two commissioning editors and a couple of directors (especially the ones who do not stay At the moment it is tough for screenwriters, that’s for sure. There in the film after all) the screenplay will be better in some ways but also was a short period when Germany had started developing something lacking originality – and often miles away from what the screenwriter like a healthy screenwriting sector in TV, but this is now also over. initially wanted to write. A screenplay is still considered as something There are several reasons for that – to name just a few: cheap pro- formable, something on which everybody can and should lay their gramming like reality shows and the predominance of the audience hands – screenplays are notably still referred to as “blueprints” which percentage quotas even on public TV, which leaves no room for try- is even less than the architectural layout or design. With the result, ing things out. The cinema situation is the same as in the whole of however, that most writers with self-esteem will soon move on to Europe: no screenwriter can live from writing for the cinema alone. write novels or direct – which is the profession which attracts all the attention and respect in the film business, in Germany but also in Europe in general. As Robert McKee says in an interview (Dennis Eick, DO YOU THINK WRITING TALENT IS BEING RE- Drehbuchtheorien, UVK 2006) “You don’t teach them, you don’t pay COGNIZED AND REACHING THE SCREEN, OR DOES them, you don’t respect them!” He adds that if he were a screen- THE SYSTEM STIFLE ORIGINALITY? writer in Germany, he too would rather write novels. german films quarterly focus on writing for the screen 4 · 2006 4 DO YOU THINK THAT SCREENPLAY DEVELOP- whether national or European, should trust the talent more than they MENT HAS BEEN PROFESSIONALIZED IN THE LAST do now. For instance, there are very few subsidies who allow for the DECADE OR SO? screenwriters to apply. The German Federal Film Board is one of them. But most of the rest, nationally as well as internationally, think There is a certain degree of professionalization, this is true. For one that the involvement of a producer can guarantee that the project is thing, screenwriting has been included in the curriculae of the film made. This is just not true and where it is, it does not necessarily schools and academies. And there are a lot of screenwriting seminars, mean that the project should have been produced as it is. It is defi- and some of them are excellent. But what has happened is that we nitely time to review this practice. have also imported the re-write practice of the American film indu- stry. A producer who respects himself fires and hires writers as part of his job during development. People seem to think that this is the DOES THE WRITER GET ENOUGH POWER IN THE secret of success of the American films. Well, I don’t believe that this PROCESS, OR IS IT A CONSTANT STRUGGLE? is true and there is enough evidence to the contrary. The excellent screenplays, such as those by Charlie Kaufman or Guillermo Arriaga, The situation has certainly improved and is constantly improving as do not go through that process. Besides, such practice is contrary to writers such as Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation, the European moral rights tradition. The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind), Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) or Andres Germany was one of the first countries together with France which Tomas Jensen (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, Mifune, Open Hearts, recognized moral rights as rights of creators of copyrighted works Brothers), to name a European, give new rise to the idea of the screen- and fought to include them in the Berne Convention for the Protection of writer as the auteur and creative generator of cinematic product. Literary and Artistic Works in 1928. Now this tradition is destroyed Taking into account the double character of the screenplay, there are through the back door. I personally believe we got something con- signs of increased respect both for the role of the screenwriter in film fused here. A screenwriter does need help in development and it is production as well as for screenwriting as the literary form of the 21st good to discuss scripts. But there are professionals who know what century – but there is also definitely a long way to go. The time is right they’re doing and who can help without stifling the originality of a though and we may soon be looking at film history in a different way screenplay: They are called script consultants or dramaturges or story than the auteur theory has lead us to do in the last few decades. I like editors and they are mostly colleague screenwriters: again, some of to think of Kaufman, Arriaga and Jensen as the pioneers of a new era them are very good. Rewriting is a difficult business as in any other for screenwriters and not as the big exception. literary form, while half-education (which is the dark side of the many, often too short, workshops which have literally flooded Europe in the last decade) is sometimes more dangerous than helpful. BUT ISN’T A FILM MOSTLY THE WORK OF A DIRECTOR? WHERE DO YOU SEE THE MOST EXCITING WORK No! The director is often considered as “the primary creator in a COMING FROM? collaborative process.“ This sounds like a paradox to me.